An estimated 41.3 million people saw 'The Hurt Locker' top box office titan 'Avatar' for Best Picture in the most watched Academy Awards telecast since 2005.
It was the second straight year that the Oscars saw a ratings bump and it wasn't a small one at that -- viewership was up 14 percent since last year.
Just over 36 million saw 'Slumdog Millionaire' win Best Picture in 2009. And 32 million saw the trophies being handed out in 2008. That was the Oscar's smallest audience on record.
But viewers didn't only tune in for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. ABC's red carpet show averaged 25.1 million viewers, its best performance since 2007, and Barbara Walters' pre-Oscars special was seen by 15 million viewers, its biggest audience since all the way back in 2002.
Ratings for the New York market appeared to be largely unaffected despite a business dispute between Cablevision and Walt Disney Co. that saw ABC dropped by Cablevision for its 3.1 million subscribers until after the telecast began on Sunday.
Nielsen estimates about 70 million Americans watched at least six minutes of the telecast.
An estimated 41.3 million people saw 'The Hurt Locker' 
